Google Sitemap

[4little1s]

Hi,

Go easy on me as I'm no techy here.....I have submitted an XML sitemap for our site www.4little1s.com and noticed that only 111 pages of over 500 pages are actually being indexed. Anyone able to give me some high level pointers as to how I increase this ?



Thanks,

[pinbrook]

when did you submit the sitemap? it may be a case of waiting a little longer

[4little1s]

Hi,

I just resubmitted it about an hour ago, but have resubmitted the one that's been there for months if that makes sense..... do you think its worth me creating a new one and then resubmitting ?

[Mike Hughes]

The pages that aren't being indexed are like this because Google views them as relatively unimportant.

The problem is really due to the pages being buried deep in the website.

i.e. www.4little1s.com > Furniture & roomsets > Tranquility Chestnut baby furniture set > Tranquility chestnut roomset offer

Google views pages deep within the website as less important than others. To get around this you need to get relevant external links to the pages to raise their 'visibility' to google.

Submitting sitemaps won't change this. Google knows the pages are there, just doesn't care about them really.

Mike

[4little1s]

Oh I see, I didn't realise that, many thanks I will try and get some links to some of the deeper pages then. Thanks again.

[Lance]

It might be an idea to create your own sitemap to all your pages. You could put this page high up, say on your home page. This might raise the importance of those deeply buried pages to google. I'm only speculating here - does anyone know if this would help?

[Mike Hughes]

There is already a sitemap on the website.

This does help Google find all the pages and gives them a bit of prominance, but because there are so many pages linked from the one place, each one only gets a little boost. Far less than the other pages that are linked more prominently on the rest of the website.

External links to pages buried deep in a website are a great way to raise their visibility to the search engines.

Mike

[Lance]

Although the logical structure shows the pages deep within the site the physical structure is a flat structure i.e. all the html is in the acatalog directory. Surely this would make the pages all of equal importance to google (leaving aside any external links)?

[Rich Brady]

A link to your html sitemap from every page on your site (I usually put one in the footer on the left hand side) gives search engines access to every page on your site within one "click" if you will. Rather than waiting for spiders to crawl through every link on your pages.

Hi,

Go easy on me as I'm no techy here.....I have submitted an XML sitemap for our site www.4little1s.com and noticed that only 111 pages of over 500 pages are actually being indexed. Anyone able to give me some high level pointers as to how I increase this ?
Thanks,

I assume you hope that more indexed pages will equal more sales?

I wouldn't spend too long focusing on how many pages are indexed specifically.

Log into Google Analytics | Content and see which of your pages have the highest bounce rate. That's where sites are loosing people's attention. Address the issues on that page and then move to the next highest.

The changes will range form font type, broken layouts, out of date info or high prices, but once you start cutting down the bounce rate of your human visitors, you'll soon start reaping rewards in terms of search engines too.

[Mike Hughes]

Although the logical structure shows the pages deep within the site the physical structure is a flat structure i.e. all the html is in the acatalog directory. Surely this would make the pages all of equal importance to google (leaving aside any external links)?

No. Google uses the links between pages to map the structure of the website. The physical location of the files isn't relevant.

Mike

[4little1s]

Thanks, you are probably right in terms of maybe I should forget the whole how many pages are getting listed and look more closely at the content analytics part. As yes the main drive of the question I guess is to get more sales.....thks

[Jan]

It worth reading through this thread and the blog post it links to as well

http://community.actinic.com/showthr...temap+priority

Some very useful info on google site maps there.

Regards,

[Mike Hughes]

Thanks, you are probably right in terms of maybe I should forget the whole how many pages are getting listed and look more closely at the content analytics part. As yes the main drive of the question I guess is to get more sales.....thks

There are two different things here. Each stands alone in it's own right and neither should be ignored.

1. You need to be well positioned in the search engines to get the vistors to your site.

2. You need to convert these visitors into customers.

Both work together to increase sales.

Mike

[Rich Brady]

There are two different things here. Each stands alone in it's own right and neither should be ignored.

1. You need to be well positioned in the search engines to get the vistors to your site.

2. You need to convert these visitors into customers.

Both work together to increase sales.

Mike

Agreed, but getting loads of visitors to a site that's not converting is of little use to any one.

More often than not optimising a page for your human vistors will help with Search Engines anyway.

I just wanted to OP to be aware that indexed pages are not the be all and end all. If you focus too much on that area (page rank is another thing that site owners obsess with) then you can easily miss something obvious that, when put right could reap rewards.

For example:

I wouldn't part with £300 on this because the images are not detailed enough for me.

The more information button just opens a slightly larger image than the one in the product layout and I'm redirected back to the section page if I want to see more detail on each individual item.

You've got me to this page, the buy button is there but I now have to open a dozen pages to see what I'm getting.

I want to click on that image and have a slide show or lightbox pop up with detailed images of everything included, or a video of a member of staff talking through the items as they pack it into a box ready for it to be delivered to me.

But that's just me

[Mike Hughes]

Agreed, but getting loads of visitors to a site that's not converting is of little use to any one.

True. Just as a wonderfully converting website is no use if you get no visitors.

Don't get me wrong though. There's little point getting visitors to your website if you're unable to engage them and give them what they're looking for. It's just that the two go hand in hand in delivering customers and sales to the business.

Mike